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Market Direction Is Important –
Updated Chart of the S&P 500 and Secondary Signals
Of our Four secondary indicators under our MTI:
Relative Strength Index (RSI)-Negative
Chaikin Money Flow (CMF)-Negative
MACD- Negative
Money Flow Index-MFI-Positive
More on the Market and the Economy:
Stocks slipped on Friday after a solid jobs report boosted expectations of a rate hike in the fall, with the S&P 500 posting a .7% loss for the week. The strong jobs report also sparked a sharper selloff in the bond market, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury reaching an eight-month high, and posting its biggest weekly rise since June 2013.
Source: dshort.com
This week data will be released on small business optimism, business inventories, retail sales, producer prices and the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.
After meeting on Friday, OPEC refused to cut its oil production, maintaining its collective output at 30 million barrels per day despite weak prices. The 12 OPEC nations are trying to hold onto their fading grip on the market: the cartel used to make up about 60% of the global market – that has dropped to 40% as US production has surged.
The International Monetary Fund cautioned the Federal Reserve in its annual assessment of the economy last Thursday, suggesting that the central bank delay a rate hike until the first half of 2016: “The FOMC should remain data dependent and defer its first increase in policy rates until there are greater signs of wage or price inflation than are currently evident… barring upside surprises to growth and inflation, this would put lift-off into the first half of 2016”.
Taxpayer services from the IRS were pretty abysmal this tax season, with the agency answering fewer than half of taxpayers’ phone calls, and long lines outside IRS offices. Between 2010 and 2014, the share of calls answered fell from 74% to 64%, and dropped further this year. And since 2010, Congress has cut IRS funding by roughly one-fifth.
Around 52.2 million people in the US – or 21.3% of the population – participated in government assistance programs each month in 2012, according to a new report from the Census Bureau. Participation rates were highest for Medicaid (15.3%) and SNAP, also known as food stamps (13.4%).
Foreclosure activity rose 3% in April according to RealtyTrac, with filings on 125,875 properties for the month, marking an 18-month high. The increase was driven by bank repossessions, and one in every 1,049 housing units was hit with a filing.
An interesting infrographic on the best US government employers:
